Born to Lead: How did homegrown productions fare for Tony Award nominations?

The 2025 Tony Award nominations have been released, and let us tell you, father’s never been prouder of our West End imports!

It seems that Tony voters had similar tastes to you, our WhatsOnStage readers, and the Oliviers voters, with many UK award-winning productions receiving love on the Great White Way.

Operation win over Broadway is fully a go, as the WhatsOnStage Award-winning musical Operation Mincemeat is up for the coveted prize of Best Musical. The West End modern masterpiece faces competition from Buena Vista Social Club, Dead Outlaw (another musical about a corpse), Death Becomes Her, and Maybe Happy Ending – which for a long time was the front-running underdog.

The ultimate shining example of what humans can be: SpitLip (comprised of David Cumming, Felix Hagan, Natasha Hodgson and Zoë Roberts) earned Tony Award nominations for Best Book of a Musical and for Best Original Score for Operation Mincemeat. Interestingly, the nominees for Best Book match exactly with the Best Musical nominees. There’s obviously some strong storytelling on Broadway right now.

For Original Score, it’s a similar tale except Real Women Have Curves has been swapped in to replace Buena Vista Social Club. It’s clear that these six musicals we can look to as favourites to win.

Jamie Lloyd‘s revival of Sunset Boulevard headed to Broadway with its original principal cast: two of whom, Nicole Scherzinger, the bloody Norma Desmond in the black slip, and the city walking Tom Francis, received nominations for their lead performances. Scherzinger picked up the WhatsOnStage and the Olivier Award – can she do a Jodie Comer in 2023 and get the Tony, too?

Lloyd’s minimalist direction has earned him his third Tony Award nomination, along with the show being considered for Best Musical Revival. Sunset Boulevard’s other technical category nominations include: Best Orchestrations, Best Lighting Design and Best Sound Design, totalling seven nominations. One thing to note is that the Tony Awards have separate technical categories for plays and musicals, meaning a lot more nominees.

Stranger Things: The First Shadow was a late entry to the Tonys race, but newcomer Louis McCartney has gotten a well-deserved nod. It’s hard to believe that performing the role in the West End was the first time he’d been on stage. Now, he’s up against competition that includes mega-star George Clooney and Broadway darling Cole Escola. Will he win? Stranger things have happened!

The creative team has been deservedly spoilt with nominations, too. Picking up nominations for Best Scenic Design, Best Sound Design, Best Lighting Design, Best Costume Design. What’s more, the Stranger Things illusions and technical effects team, Jamie Harrison, Chris Fisher, Gary Beestone and Edward Pierce, have been honoured with a special Award.

The Hills of California may have had a different ending on Broadway, but it is similarly acclaimed. It’s joined by the Sadie Sink-led John Proctor is the Villain as being the most nominated play, with seven nominations a piece. Notably, the Jez Butterworth piece is up for Best Play, its director Sam Mendes and for the star performance from Laura Donnelly. She’s in strong company, with Sarah Snook and her solo performance in The Picture of Dorian Gray. It did start in Sydney, with Eryn Jean Norvill, but was heavily reconfigured for the West End, with the introduction of the Succession star.

Though it is a solo show, Snook has made no secret of the multitude of people backstage and behind the scenes who make the magic happen. This is reflected in nominations for its scenic design, costume design, lighting design, sound design, and for director Kip Williams.

Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends, which was nominated for Best Entertainment or Comedy Play at the Olivier Awards (and lost out to Stranger Things: The First Shadow), had been classed as a musical, with stars Lea Salonga and Bernadette Peters both eligible as featured performers. However, it has failed to pick up any nominations.

Further omissions include the ill-fated Tammy Faye, with Katie Brayben, and though we haven’t had Romeo + Juliet on these shores (yet), we were planning on taking pride in English performer Kit Connor, who played one half of the star-crossed lovers opposite incoming West End star Rachel Zegler.

See the full list of 2025 Tony Award nominees here.